


Don't Drink and Write

by Talik_Sanis



Series: Miraculous Crackfics [14]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Is Sunshine, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Aged-Up Character(s), Batman and Robin and Comicbook Characters, Bittersweet Ending, Body Shots, Confident Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Crack, F/M, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Fictional Maribat, Hangover, Hot Mess Adrien Agreste, Hot Mess Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Identity Reveal, MariBat, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Metafiction, Mild Sexual Content, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s03 Chat Blanc, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Shirtless Adrien, Temporary Character Death, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28220025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talik_Sanis/pseuds/Talik_Sanis
Summary: Marinette wakes up with the mother of all hangovers only to learn that, apparently, drunk Marinette likes to do two things:1. Lick Adrien Agreste's abs2. Write crack crossover fan fiction shipping Ladybug and Damian Wayne.Of course, only one of those two things is blowing up the internet, and causing Marinette to start to break down in so, so many ways.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Miraculous Crackfics [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755580
Comments: 108
Kudos: 189





	1. Friends Don't Let Friends...

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Mind the tags.
> 
> The first chapter is safe, salty humour
> 
> There will be a significant tone shift to a very dark place that reflects, potentially, such things as: PTSD, anxiety, depression, obsessive behaviours, dissociation, imagined character death, and a whole mélange of emotional disorders that probably cannot be readily classified. 
> 
> Also, the Maribat and Daminette are parody. 
> 
> For the record, I love Damian Wayne as a character, and "Requiem for Damian" is one of the best short runs I've read.

Vomit and an ash tray.

That's what her mouth tastes like.

Concerning, as she doesn't smoke.

And possibly like someone else's vomit because she would never eat something that could come back up tasting _this_ vile.

Jackhammers and fireworks are breaching her skull from both sides, the thundering explosions almost deafening her to her own whine.

Marinette cracks an eye one – just one; it's dangerous outside of her eyelids. The innocently white ceiling of her apartment bedroom stares back, nearby windows letting in a beam of warm golden sunshiny hell that stabs her eyes like a pair of fishhooks, digging in to gut her brain.

Which would be an improvement at this point.

Stomach and head swimming as she nearly retches up whatever actually is in her stomach, she looses a pitiable groan, cut with a gurgle as she holds back from spewing chunks, and oozes her pillow over her head with a shaky hand.

She lays there, possibly in her death throes, hand rising up to her temple and pressing into the soft divot of flesh just behind her eye to either massage out the stabbing agony or crush her skull until her brain leaks out and spares her entirely.

_I'm never drinking again._

This she vows, _very quietly_ , inside of her own mind as she slouches her way towards the bathroom, knuckles to her eyes to rub out the crusty gunk as she fumbles out of her Jagged Stone tee-shirt and skinny jeans – stained with a bit of vomit – that she'd thrown on before heading out to a party at Alya's last night.

She looks a mess, hair fumbled and tangled and stinking of – she brings a few strands to her nose – something disgusting but thankfully unidentifiable because she doesn't want to know.

First order of business: get the vomit out of her mouth so she can pound back a trio of Advil and get some proper hydration.

That sounds vaguely like three orders of business, but _screw you counting; I have a hangover._

The bathroom is a dimly lit blur, the only illumination pouring in from the doorway behind her, and the semi-darkness gives her eyes time to adjust, blunting the efforts of the psychotic knife-wielding maniac who has been having his way with her brain.

She scoops up her toothbrush, the harsh gurgle in her stomach weakening her legs so that she contemplates pitching over to the toilet to just let go and vomit up all the sick watery feeling, but she swallows. Hand to her sweaty forehead, willing her gut to settle, she splashes cool tap water on her face, easing the throb, and though her digestive track protests, she really needs to scrub out that ugly taste. Maybe that will help her to settle.

Though if she feels this bad...

“'ikki, 'ut 'appen lass 'ight?” Marinette mumbles around the minty toothbrush in her mouth, the relief sending nearly sinful shivers down her spine as that foul taste is wiped clean.

The little red kwami is in the bathroom, Marinette realizes for the first time. Her legs dangle off the edge of the counter as she taps her little nubs together, looking for all the world like – like the Ladybug who had caught the Aphid.

“Well, I'm not going to tell you that you didn't do body-shots off of Adrien's abs.”

Marinette takes a moment to process as she horks out a gob of spit and toothpaste, stomach folding over on itself.

“... what?”

“You did body-shots off Adrien's abs. It was kind of hot if you're into that sort of thing.”

Do kwami find human beings sexually attractive and if so has Marinette been making several horrible errors in allowing Tikki to stay in the room while she changes?

No matter; there are more important things to freak out about at this juncture.  
  
“ _What_?!” Marinette screeches, regretting it as the wail cracks open her skull and sends rolling soundwaves through her body. She ain't got time to bleed, vomit, or die, however much she might wish to do the latter, though.

A whirl brings her to face her kwami, who flits up and back off the counter, eyes flitting towards the window for a moment for a means of escape, while Marinette brandishes her drippy toothbrush like a prison shiv, flicking a smattering of toothpasty saliva in Tikki's direction.

“It's perfectly natural, Marinette. The boy has nice abs. I mean, they're like mountains that you can climb with your tongue.” Tikki shrugs, her little nubby arms rising to the side of her head. “Which you did. Climbed them like mount Everest.”

“What the heck is _wrong_ with you, Tikki? Since when do you talk like this?”

Tikki twiddles her nubs as if this is an everyday occurrence. “Oh, I'm just quoting Alya.”

Of course the pair would be _monsters_ together.

“When did you speak to Alya?” Marinette shivers and spits out the rest of her toothpaste before rinsing her mouth quickly. “Did I – was there an identity reveal last night?”

Oh, God, how far gone was she last night and if Alya knew did that mean that there had been video footage of her body shots posted on the Ladyblog to accompany a no-doubt Pulitzer prize worthy blog article that unveiled the true identity of Ladybug to the world while also informing the citizenry that the spotted heroine was a frick'n thirty perv who deserved to have her miraculous removed by the Paris police in order to ensure the safety of Adrien's no-doubt tasty abs?

“No.” Tikki gestures towards Marinette's cell-phone in the other room. “She sent you a text message using pretty much those exact words.”

On rushing over to her bedside table and scooping up her cell phone with trembling hands, a burst of adrenaline giving her the shakes and blunting the throb of her headache for just a moment, she checks her texts.

> Foxy Lady: OMG girl. That was the hottest thing that I've ever seen!
> 
> Foxy Lady: Those abs! That tongue!
> 
> Foxy Lady: No idea you had such skill.
> 
> Foxy Lady: Hardcore determination climbing those abs like mount Everest.

*Foxy Lady has attached a file*

It is a video clip.

Dare she open it?

Is she strong enough to resist?

The answer is found in the deep-cut recesses of Adrien Agreste's abs, which are on full display as the shirtless man in question lays splayed out on Nino's sofa.

His eyelids flutter, hiding eyes that are clearly rolling back into his head. Fingers are white-knuckling the cushions.

Marinette herself kneels on a pillow beside the sofa, one hand caressing Adrien's thigh and the other to his chest while she suckles the ridges of his washboard stomach before licking her way up his body to hover over his face. Then, she fumbles for a shot on the floor, downs the drink with a cocky Ladybug flourish, and delves in to bite the wedge of lime stuck between Adrien's teeth, pressing her lips to the pink sweetness of his mouth. Lime juice pours out from their oh-so-sinfully-sloppy half-kiss and she has to suckle it up and then lick away the remnants from his blushing cheeks.

There is no denying that Alya was objectively correct that this debauchery is the hottest thing that Marinette has ever seen.

“Oh, God, Tikki! My life is over!”

“Now, Marinette,” Tikki reassures with a tentative pat to Marinette's collarbone, just above the hyperventilating chest. “It's going to be just fine. Adrien really enjoyed himself.”  
  
“How do you know that, Tikki?! He probably hates me for forcing myself on him just like Lila and Chloe and all the obsessive stalker fangirls out there so he'll tell his father that I'm a sick freak and I'll get barred from any fashion house and the restraining order will mean that I never get to see him again and the police investigation will reveal that I'm Ladybug so I'll have to abandon my identity and start living off the grid as a homeless person under a bridge in order to keep being Ladybug without putting my family in danger!”

Tikki redirects her attention to a certain detail that, given its prominence, should have been obvious had Marinette not been paying attention to herself in the video clip. A detail that completely short-circuits the disaster spiral.

“Oh. Well.” A hand scratches through the greasy hair at the back of her head. “I... That doesn't mean that he wanted me to do what I did. I- I can't take that as ... consent.”

A few frustrated taps with her nubs while Marinette holds the cell-phone out in front of the Kwami skips the video ahead by roughly thirty seconds, right to the point that Marinette is preparing another body shot. The sound is active this time when Tikki throws her nubs out to the screen and gestures for Marinette to watch.

Which she does with wide-eyed and opened-mouthed interest.

“Oh- Oh _God_ , Mari!” the model whimper-slurs, abs undulating while he cleaves towards her, shaking hand to her shoulder as he whines in a way that Marinette would probably give up her Miraculous to hear again. This video is getting saved, alright. “I- I get to do you next right? _Please_! You're killing me!”

Video Marinette is smirking up at him, and there is no hint of hesitation or uncertainty when she makes him shudder for her by tracing a smooth finger down his jawline and throat, ending up on his pec where she swirls over his nipple.

“Sure thing, hot stuff.” A dash of salt is pinched into the absolutely abyssal abs of one Adrien Agreste as video Marinette plants her cheek to his sternum to gaze at the rough, mountainous terrain while licking her lips. “Jus' got to earn it first. Be a good boy.”

“Jesus, Mari! _Please_!”

Okay. Even hotter. That is some very... explicit consent. Nothing _really_ explicit, but...

Oh...

Nice drunken alpinism on your mountain-climbing expedition, Marinette's tongue.

As if it scalded her hand, the cell phone ends up buried in Marinette's sheets when she tosses it aside in mingled mortification and other things.

“Please tell me that's all that I did,” she groans into her palms, the only balm to her embarrassed wound the realization that Adrien actually enjoyed and consented to that depravity.

“Other than letting Adrien do body shots off your abs too, which are just as nice, by the way?”  
  
Marinette's groan can be heard in the neighbouring apartment.

“There was one other thing.”

“I didn't actually.... _do_ anything with Adrien, did I?” There's a knife of fear in her gut, ripping out entrails. A body shot is one thing, but if she had done something _real_ with Adrien, lost her first time with him – that she'd dreamed of for nearly a decade in an idiotic drunken stupor...

She'd never forgive herself.

“Oh, no, Marinette! Alya would never let something like that happen! She loves you.”

“Thank God!” Marinette sighs, drooping with relief, though she cannot relax just yet. “Then what _did_ I do?”

Tikki simply directs Marinette's attention to the computer by waving a helpless little nub and ... blushing?! Marinette boggles. There is an expression of contrition that she's familiar with that appears whenever Tikki is hiding something but unable to conceal that fact. This look is more... amused-regretful.

Tikki merely flutters over to Marinette's computer, tumbling into the mouse to wake the screen from sleep mode, before settling in to watch as the web-browser appears.

Whatever this is, Marinette needs a drink to face it.

She retrieves cool water and instant coffee – _bleh_ – from the kitchen, along with a packet of saltines that will be good for her stomach before returning to the patiently-waiting Tikki and easing herself down into her desk chair.

_An Archive of Our Own?_

_The Birds and the Ladybugs_

by Sewn_Spots

Marinette nearly chews and swallows glass in the midst of taking a sip of water, staring at her own pen-name before glancing down at the summary for a story that she has no recollection of ever plotting out or writing.

_Ladybug visits Gotham city on civilian business and finds a kindred spirit in the form of a grown-up Damien Waynne, but she also finds herself falling for the dashing Robin. What's a girl to do when she's torn between two hot guys? Date them both!_

_Identity shenanigans galore!._

What has drunk Marinette _done_?

The bitch.

Despite the blazing headache that is attenuated by a few Advil and the tall glass of water that she sips between mouthfuls from her steaming mug of coffee, Marinette sets in to read this... piece out of sheer curiosity regarding the operation of “Drunk Marinette's” mind.

As she scrolls through the story, cringing over some of her obvious grammatical errors and the irrational plot that she excuses herself for because drunk and crack!fic, she actually finds herself laughing.

Apparently, Ladybug was on a trip to Gotham city in order to secure financing for one of her projects. _Marie_ was a sculptor funded by the Wayne family foundation for the arts. While presenting her application for funds, she ran into a grim, brooding, petulant, and ... really murdery Damien Wayne – Was that how the name was spelled? Chat was more into comics than her – and even though Damien was a raving sociopathic child solider, the civilian Ladybug swooned all over him.

Her justification in the author's notes was that _women liked men who treated them like shit, but had a heart of gold that had to be unlocked from its prison of ice after she “fixed him.”_

 _Ugh_. Even as a joke in a crack fic, that makes her kind of uncomfortable.

 _The acrobatic Robin who had grown into that delicious form-fitting costume kind of like Chat Noir (but don't tell him I said that or that I low-key want to bone him and by bone him I don't mean get boned by him but peg him),_ _arced through the air like a tumbling bullet that had been thrown rather than shot from a gun, following a sexy parabola of brooding hotness – just like his dad, who was a total silverfox (rawr!) and his brothers who I might have a foursome with and that was totally fine because they aren't related by blood. He brought his katana down on the akumatized Harley Quinn with a_ _snicker-snack, blood showering both heroes._

_Damien was able to feign sufficient social skills after years of observing psychologically undamaged human beings to appear to be contrite. “Sorry Lovebug. Those aren't the bodily fluids I wanted you covered in tonight.”_

That's actually strangely coherent for being drunk, if totally cringe and dumb despite the uncharacteristic verbose style. Did drunk Marinette have a thesaurus?  
  
“Tikki?” Marinette coughs while taking a drink – _never_ have a beverage on hand when reading a crack fic – sputtering for a moment and pounding on her chest before setting down her glass to glare at her kwami. “How did I write so clearly? I mean, it's a mess, but still mostly coherent.”  
  
“Oh, you asked me to beta read it before I posted. There was a lot to clean up, and I also changed Marinette to Marie to protect your identity.”

Considerate of the little ratfink.

Friends shouldn't let friends post fan fiction while drunk at all; not just protect their secret identities. Still, is it better or worse that this thing had actually been beta-read?

Marinette returns to the story... such as it is.

_A heated sigh bubbled up in Ladybug's throat._

_Oh, it's okay, Lovebird!” she exclaimed as she sluiced blood off of her costume. It was already red, so a little blood didn't make much of a difference, and it was like bathing in the essence of Damien's love for her. “This is totally hot and you can lick it up later.”_

“ _You know me so well, Lovebug. I love drinking the blood of my enemies!” Damien said in a cheerful brood as he clutched a swooning Ladybug to his meaty chest, the feeling of his abs obvious even through his padded costume, though they were really nothing compared to Adrien Agreste's that Ladybug had always wanted to lick until she'd actually done it and realized that it was better than any fantasy imaginable._

Marinette wobbles in her chair, pressing the cool, smooth surface of her glass to her forehead. This is God-awful, even for crack, and how much had Tikki “betaed” it? A lot and not enough by all indications.

If she knew more about Damian Wayne's character, she might be able to assess it from that angle too, but since she has never read a Batman comic, that was pretty much impossible

She scoffs while Tikki pats her shoulder, nuzzling into the crux of her neck, and scrolls up to delete the story so that it doesn't continue to sully her account. While she has produced some crack fan fiction in the past, she doesn't need garbage polluting her feed.

What will someone think if they see this _thing_ mixed in with her light-hearted stories or the serious, intricately plotted _Cybersix_ fan-fiction featuring complex commentary on the nature of love and the discovery of bisexuality after a lifetime of repression? Oh, the friends-to-lovers and identity shenanigan possibilities in that sadly-short-lived show!

Such works might only get a few dozen kudos at best, but she can be proud of them.

To see just how many of her readers had been sadly exposed to this... LadyBird (?) nonsense, and so that she can respond to any confused comments with sincere apologies, she refreshes the page.

4738 hits.

627 Kudos.

239 bookmarks.

174 comments.

What.

The.

_Heck!_

She scrolls down to the bottom of the page, needing to see the comments. Did they like the humour? Was that it? How can this get more attention than ... everything? All the plotting; all the clever prose and hard work and attention to details and subtle characterization that she had poured hours into perfecting as she tried her best to explore enduring questions of the human condition...

And her account's Kudo total has quadrupled in one night thanks to a drunk crack fic?!

What the hell is even the point of writing?

Then, she reaches the comments and nearly pitches her glass through the computer monitor as her hands quake with rage.

The coffee mug would follow right through the gaping hole.

> _Lazercat: I know that this is a crackship, but darn if these two don't actually work great together. More, please!_
> 
> _LadyBat Fan: Great dynamic. I stan these dumb teens._
> 
> _Guest: Aww. Damien is such a sulky birdy. Great stuff!_
> 
> _Adrien's (new) Mommy: That line about Adrien Agreste's ab!. *Fans Self.* Girl (or guy no judgment lol!), you speak truth. Those are hot!_
> 
> _Lockmaker: I don't really like “Ladybird” as a ship name. Maybe using Marie it could be Mariebat? She makes Damian happy, after all! A good girl is all he needs._
> 
> _Leg-o-lass: Nice. Sewing_Spots, any chance of a sin-fic followup where Marie really helps him to really get (off) “merry?”_
> 
> _LadyBat Fan: Ooh. I love the ship name “Mariebat!” I'm definitely going to take that one. Need more of this stuff, and I'll write it myself if I have to! Chat's totally going to join Hawkmoth when he gets cucked so Damien Waynne can punch him out!_

Delete comment?

Yes.

Yes please.

> _Foxy_Momma_Bear: Even with the off-the-wall humour, Ladybug's underlying emotional plight is truly staggering. You managed to capture the strain of her responsibilities so palpably. Keep writing!_

Okay. Kind.

> _chatnoircandieinafire: So much better than that fuckwit Chat Noir! So rapey. Can we see some Chat salt? Maybe he watches LB cucking him on a roof and then goes and kills himself?_

So much for the happy buzz in the back of her brain. Marinette _responds_ to that comment with a “Screw you, _asshole_!” and then deletes the original too for good measure. Normally, she strives to be polite to even the most forthright and critical comments, but this damn fool has just pressed the “Kitty Button” that causes Ladybug to bust out and bust _ass_ as only she can.

> _Everfree: Ladybug in Gotham? I've always head-canoned that she was an orphan who had adopted Paris itself as her “mother,” so seeing her getting brought into the batfam? Ugh. My heart can't take that sweetness._

There are innumerable variations on this strange theme of “sweetness” and several assertions that they love seeing Ladybug finally breaking loose and being a little bit selfish, mean, or spiteful to the people who had wronged her. Conversations are spiraling out across her comments section, reviewers cheering the relationship that she created and the genuineness of “Damien's” characterization and interplay with Ladybug.

What the flipping fan-fiction was this _nonsense_?

Leaning into her computer screen, she clacks away at her keyboard with taloned, rigid fingers, muscles cramping up in her stooped shoulders and searches for the term “Mariebat” and “Ladybird + Ladybug Fan Fiction” on Google. Is her story the first entry?

No.

It has already hit the Reddit Ladybug Fanworks.

In just over four hours, there are around eight-hundred comments on the relevant thread, with the original poster having received over 1000 upvotes and several medals and other awards for introducing the reddit community to this “masterwork.”

With the intention of wiping clean this monstrous perversion of her account, she smashes the “back” tab on her browser and opens up the editing feature on her story before an aggrieved warble from Tikki stops her in her tracks. The kwami is rubbing her nubs together in the way she does before shooting down one of Marinette's plans.

“What's wrong, Tikki?”

“I don't think that you should delete the story, Marinette.” There is a disapproving glare that reminds Marinette too much of her mother to be anything less than disturbing when its on a little inch-high rubbery face.

“Why would I want to _keep_ it?”

“Well,” Tikki begins, settling on the edge of Marinette's keyboard. “It's just that so many people liked it, no matter how you feel about it. You brought some happiness into their lives, maybe brightened someone's day when they really needed it!”

“But what about those ... punks who were bad-mouthing Chat?” A shiver of visceral disgust has the hairs on her neck standing on end. After everything she and her partner had done too, all... all the times that he-  
  
“It's your story and your comment section. You can cut out all the nasty, unfair comments and put in an author's note at the end of the story, asking people to be kind.”

“It is _my_ story, Tikki.” It's an easy deflection as she grips her keyboard, but the comments are still in her head, resounding, and even squeezing her eyes shut doesn't get the images out as her breathing picks up. The delete story button is right _there_. So easy. “I have the right to delete it, if I want to.”  
  
“Of course, Marinette. I'm not saying that you don't; you do what you think is best. You control your art, but people are saying very kind things about it. Maybe you can just focus on the positives? Check your other stories. I bet that a bunch of your readers are going over to read them too.”

The screen shifts over to her Author's statistics page before she scrambles to her gmail account to review the AO3 update announcement she received regarding new Kudo totals.

Dozens.

No. Hundred across a half-dozen of her stories as people migrated from her LadyBird or “MarieBat” story and began to read her less-popular works, flooding them with kudos and comments that were... laudatory.

All these people! They took the time to read and reply, and whether it was a page of in-depth analysis, an extensive observation about all the things the reader loved, or questions that he had, or just a single kind word like “Thanks for writing!” every single one is a precious thing.

It – it's validating and special and beautiful because of the kindness that means everything to someone who still... struggles.

“Is it right for me to be popular for something this... terrible, though?” The comments are still on her mind.  
  
“Well, let's not go crazy, Marinette. You're a good writer, and your other stories deserve to be read, but with this one.... People will read it, enjoy it, and then move on. I hope that didn't come across as cruel.”

“No, Tikki. I see what you mean. It's more that this story is... a flash in the pan,” she sighs as she clicks the “edit story” button on her new ... piece, so that she can clean up some of the lingering grammatical errors. “People can get excited about weird or novel ideas. They'll forget about it soon enough.”

Isn't that always the way with her stories, however hard she tries?

Tikki gives her a patented saccharine kwami grin. “I'm sure that things will settle down and you'll get back to normal.”

Marinette chooses to believe that.

After all, her power is to reset the world, return everything to a state of stagnant normalcy.

If only that worked for more than the broken bones and smashed buildings.

Marinette forgets one crucial thing in that moment as she rises up from her chair and stretches, polishing off the last of her saltines: the internet.

Ladybug might have a miraculous reset-button, but the internet? The internet is forever; it never forgets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're about to start seeing the evolution of the Ladybug fandom's response to "MarieBat" and Marinette still has to discuss her... ab licking with Adrien Agreste.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette meets with Adrien to discuss their multiple acts of debauchery, Chat Noir has a gift for his partner, and Ladybug's life starts looking all.... white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another safe chapter, but as it concludes, we start the real transition to a worse place.

Things most assuredly do not go back to normal.

There is the matter of Friday evening's Adrien Agreste abdominal adoration, after all, so she texts him and asks to meet for a friendly lunch tomorrow.

Sunday afternoon sees her peeking around the entryway of a quaint little cafe, grimacing as she attracts some awkward glances from a departing elderly couple while Adrien very clearly pretends to not see her under the pretense of reviewing his menu.

Sweet and kind ~~boy~~ smoking-hot male model. It's no wonder that eight years really did nothing to help her get over him; not when he's just so scrumptiously sugary.

The abs don't help either.  
  
Neither do those pecs, biceps, and thighs because someone does _not_ skip leg-day.

A quick retreat as she smooshes her body up against the brickwork beside the door gives her the time that she needs to run through her breathing exercises and steady herself by reciting the words of encouragement offered by both Tikki and Alya.

Every assurance that she is strong, competent, capable, and completely, totally badass does nothing to bolster her self-confidence, but the reminder that Adrien was pretty much the sweetest little dollop of sunshiny-golden honey in the world does.

She can do this. She's Ladybug! Just channel that sexy surety she showed off while trying to eat Adrien's abs!

When she whirls viciously on the door and barges into the cafe, she smacks face-first into a departing patron's chest, but like, well, Adrien Agreste, the model remains seated at his table, blushing up to the edge of his hairline while sinking a little further into his seat and continuing to pretend for politeness' sake while she wiggles her hands, bows, and apologizes.

Ugh. Why was she not over acting like a total spaz around Adrien? It's comforting. Familiar. Doesn't make her queasy as she has felt for the last day without knowing why. The butterflies leave no room for that sloshing tightness.

Setting her jaw while slapping her cheeks to psyche herself up, she storms up to the table. Now that she's arrived, Adrien fumbles, menu flopping to the table as he leaps up from his seat to try to pull out her chair.

Which he does, though all that rippling model muscle that she'd explored only in part with her tongue last night sends the chair clattering to the ground, right into the path of a waitress who takes a half tumble, saved only by Marinette's Ladybug reflexes.

Stooping with mortification after helping the poor innocent bystander to dust herself off, she and Adrien stare at each other, the eyes of every single patron on them, as the din of conversation has died.

In unison, they collapse into liberating giggles and pitch a fit that draws even more contemptuous glares and everything is easy when Adrien rights the chair and settles her into it before sitting down across from her.

“How have you been?” It's good that he's stopped pretending with the menu.

“Good. Good.” What are you supposed to say to a guy after you sucked his abs and he might not know it? “Classes are going well.”

“That's good.” His lips pop... his lusciously gorgeous lips that were, according to Tikki, planted on her stomach last night. He chuts several times, eyes roving, air bursting through his still-grinning teeth. “Really good... yeah.”

Harsh white light from the ceiling lamps mingles with the sunlight that streams in from the window behind them. A cascade of shimmering glints and gleams bursts in that pearly, diamond-studded mouth.

Radiant.

She retreats from those brilliantly glimmering teeth into her menu. Was Adrien a ... _nibbler_? He had the teeth for it. Also, hello teeth fetish; your brothers and sisters, a tight-knit family consisting solely of other Adrien Agreste specific fetishes, welcome you with open arms.

Sweat collects along her brow as they glance out from behind cover occasionally, the wait staff giving them a wide berth to avoid any number of dangerous entanglements.

After several tense ... years, it feels like, they speak at the same time.

“Look-”

“I-”

An open palm motions for her to continue while he takes a sip from his water. That doesn't help her at all because drinking with his lips is too easily rearranged into drinking _from_ his lips and maybe having their teeth clack together awkwardly in a way that should be weird and is but is also hot for some reason.

“I'm _so_ sorry if I made you uncomfortable on Friday night,” she races on, wishing she could pluck the glass from his hands to throw the remaining water into her face. That's good. No specific details. Apologize without giving anything away if he was ignorant.

There's something soothing about the way that he wilts and smacks the glass to the table. They're in this together.

“Oh, _God_ ,” he nearly whines. “ _I'm_ sorry – I never should have forced you to do something like that. It was so – so unfair of me to just throw myself at you like that.”

“Throw yourself at me?” His gentlemanly deference verges just on the edge of misogynistic in a way, as if she didn't have any sexual agency. She shakes her head. “I don't think any girl in Paris would have turned down that offer.”

“Oh, I- I guess.” Another drink, quick. “I just didn't want you to think- uh that it was me trying – trying to, I don't know, get in your pants or something. You're an amazing friend, Marinette – a – an amazing person who deserves better than that. I'd _never_ treat you like that. I'd never ... want just that.”

Of course he wouldn't. That would require him to view her as something more than a stick of wood. Just as she can't take... that very, _very_ fine detail as consent, she can't take it as something sincere, either.  
  
“You're a great friend, too, Adrien. I'd never think that.” She can't _allow_ herself to do any of those things, and his shoulders slump with relief, even though his smile is a little fragile. Poor boy is so guilty, he's barely holding things together. “Quick question, though.”  
  
“Anything, Mari.”

“Did Alya send you the footage of me, uh, doing what I did?” Even unconsciously, he'd probably think that she was a- a slut or something if he saw that! “Is that how you... found out?”  
  
“Uh, what did you do?” Adrien scratches the back of his neck, smiling his comforting-confused grin.

Okay. Odd that Adrien seemed to have selective amnesia regarding the earlier portion of this conversation.

“Uh, when I – _lickedyourabs_!” she bursts out in a slur, hand to her face so that she can't really see him react with revulsion.

“You did what now?” He leans back in his chair, head tilting like a puppy being teased. “Is that what Nino told you?”

“Nino? What does Nino have to do with this?”

Adrien looks at her like she's insane, which, having sampled the forbidden and delicious fruit that was Adrien's abs (was that what Banquo was talking about when he wondered about eating the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?) she might well be.

It is entirely sane for any healthy male-attracted person, girl or guy, to go mad over abs that sick.

From his pocket, Adrien retrieves his black-cased cellphone, and as she accepts it in shaky hands to examine a series of text messages from Nino, she blanches.

> Michelangelo: bro sick stuff
> 
> Michelangelo: Al wants me 2 send vid
> 
> Michelangelo: dont watch w other peeps
> 
> Michelangelo: k

*Michelangelo has attached a file*

It is a video clip.

Dare she open it? Is she strong enough to resist?

The answer is found in the … _finely_ -cut recesses of Marinette Dupain-Cheng's abs, which are on full display as the partially-shirtless woman in question lays splayed out on Nino's sofa.

What has drunk Marinette had _done_ to her?

The lucky bitch.

“Oh? You _like_ that, princess?” Adrien purrs, chin to video-Marinette's hip-bone as he gazes up the length of her body, holding the edge of her tattered Jagged Stone tee-shirt up, just above the expanse of her abs. “Hm?”

An inarticulate whimper emanates from the writhing mass of flesh that might generously be considered a human being, if one ignored the fact that she had melted into a lump under the sloppy-wet heat of a smoking-hot model's tongue.

“Where's that filthy mouth of yours? Let me hear it.” At least that's what video Adrien is trying to say; it's more of a drunk slurry. His eyes and shirtless body smoulder for her as he _presumably_ suckles up salt from one bulbous bump of ab, and then another, before polishing off the whole shapely six-pack, drinking them down with a lot of saliva and reciprocal groans and grunts.

“Come on, Mari. Be a _good girl_ for me.”

Said smoulder sears Marinette right through the cell phone screen and appears to be doing much the same to video-Marinette, who-

“ _FuckAdrien_!”

Yes please!

It is only then that she, and Adrien alike by the way that he's looking around the restaurant frantically, realize that _there are other people here!_

Other people who are staring at the two with varying degrees of annoyance, disgust, interest, and ... something else from that weird guy in the back who's licking his lips and Marinette does not want to know due to the fact that it _really_ sounds like she and Adrien got together to watch their own amateur porn video in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

They leave.

Quickly.

The conversation is cut short as he grabs her hand, and it's so warm and soft and _Adrien_ that it makes her feel safe – safe enough to not really mind the stares of all those people while she and Adrien race out of the restaurant.

She laughs while they're hoofing it down the street, still holding hands. He's so adorably flustered that all she wants to do is grab his stupidly cute face and stick her tongue down his throat.

That look is so much like Chat Noir's expression when she dings his bell.

If Adrien had a bell to ding, ding it she would.

Hidden away in an alley, having outpaced the thoughts and embarrassment that were pursuing them, they break out into another fit of giggles, and Adrien offers her a friendly hug. Because he's trying to catch his breath while still hiccuping laughs, he keeps holding on, reminding her of that solidly-built body and almost, _almost_ the taste of salt and skin because his musk and vetiver and anise cologne trigger buried memories of running her nose along his neck and licking him again to get him to gasp.

Lucky drunk Marinette.

Eventually, they part, and they depart, Adrien taking her hand and telling her that he's just so grateful to have her as his friend; he can't bear it if she isn't a part of his life, so he can't thank her enough for being so understanding, just as she always is.

Later, Tikki tells her that he likes her, but that's just silly. One night of drunken body shots does not overwrite eight years of being “just friends.”

A rough week for her commissions and the heavy workload of college classes in design school ground her. She collapses into bed each night, barely able to stuff food into her mouth or attend to simple matters of personal hygiene, especially when she's called out by two Akuma that she has to battle alongside Chat, and forces herself up in the middle of the night to patrol twice. Chat frowns at her as she pounds back red bulls because she knows that she won't be going back to sleep, no matter how hard he tries.

There is no chance to think about writing, or her story, but one night, on patrol, when Chat takes her by the hand and hoists her up onto a rooftop ledge to surprise her with a massive box that contains a sloppy home-made cake, she does remember the silly comments people left about him. Even though she's bone tired, she makes time for him.

As it turns out, he is making time for _her_.

He's noticed because of course he has.

He plops her down on a chair, bowing like a gentleman – a dorky gentleman – his tail flicking and coiling while his ears twitch, and then serves her a heaping slice of surprisingly well-baked cake. The icing is uneven, a garish rainbow of experimental colour combinations, as if it was decorated by a child who couldn't decide which colouring he wanted to use so he just slathered them all on in different spots.

 _Feeline Better?_ is emblazoned on the cake's surface, each shaky letter yet another different colour, though the “i” is made up of interlocking gummy candies, her favourite brand of sours, dusted with tart crystals.

The way he bounces around the roof, already high on a sugar rush of his own sweetness, and looks at her like she could give him the world, or break it all, just with a single smile or nod makes it hard not to cry.

She shouldn't be this emotional.

Despite what she just did only a week ago with Adrien, it would be so _easy_ when he's this beautiful and the bubbly bliss and hope – not for love, but that he can just make her ... feel better because he cares – threaten to swarm right over her defences.

If she was strong enough to be honest with herself, she would admit that the only thing that stops her is that, even now, years later...

When she starts to cry, her eyes misting up, she lies, saying that she's just so touched. He doesn't believe her, hating himself so, so clearly for _failing_ to lift her spirits, and in the haze of tears that she nearly holds back all the colours bleed together.

They bleed white.

Things get worse; they do _not_ return to normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read, and I hope that you've enjoy the crack and blushing mess Adrienette and supportive Ladynoir.
> 
> Oh, and to those who asked, when all is said and done, we might get a short non-canon epilogue featuring a certain family reading strange fan fiction featuring their youngest child and a Ladybug-spotted French cartoon character.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette joins up with her friends, only to learn that her story has gained a wider following, and she starts to spiral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned that this is where we begin to get into the darker parts of the story. Mind the tags.
> 
> I also wish to make it clear that, although Maribat was chosen as the subject of this work, I am not singling it or those who enjoy it out. We are all toxic sometimes; we all fail to be our best selves, and ire and acrimony can be a feature of lovesquare, Lukadrien, Chlonette, Adrigaminette, Marcnath, Maribat, and anything in-between.
> 
> All of us have sinned and fallen short at one point or another, and we can see bile and aggression from any corner.

Alya is discussing the story when they meet up on the weekend, showing it off to Adrien, Nino, Luka, and Kagami. The couples are holding hands. The story, she says, is hilarious, but the author has a real sense of Ladybug's hidden pain, though the self-confidence issues aren't really accurate.

Walking a line between being sensitive and not being offended is hard.

No one mentions the comments about Chat Noir as they pull out the story on their cell-phones. There are laughs and jabbers and Adrien is beaming over the characterization of Damian Wayne, dorking out while referencing his character arc and his mother (He was grown in a test tube and raised to become the leader of bunch of assassins? What?) in a way that should be adorable, but isn't.

Halfway through reading the story, at least by his running verbal live-read, Adrien reaches for his glass of sparkling water and pounds back the entire thing, throat undulating. His smile is jagged-sharp, and a pallor turns his golden-peach complexion ashen.

“Uh, does anyone else feel like Ladybug's characterization-” Adrien clears his throat. “I mean – it's ... you were right, Alya. It really is kind of painful. Really... _real_?”

“Oh, I know,” Alya gushes, caught up in that fiery excitement of a child who never outgrew superheros and comicbooks. Even now, years later, it burns hot, searing, scarring. “I think that's the best part. It looks like a crack-fic, but then you get this subtle undercurrent that something's really wrong – like...”

Her hands waggle in the air, trying to grab onto the words.

Marinette is doodling on her sketchpad, pushing her seat away from the table to give herself more room. A potted plant in bloom with red and white flowers has inspired her, but no idea coalesces. She can't get the lines and curves right. She tries and fails; can't quite focus.

Adrien frowns, gaze flitting about everywhere but in Marinette's direction and a new fear bubbles up that maybe, maybe they're not okay even after their talk. “Like she's okay with how Damian treats her because she doesn't really have enough, I don't know, self-respect or- or-”

“Or she's suffering from self-esteem issues, right? But something more than that, too.” Luka adds, eyes narrow, while Kagami brings his hand to her lips and kisses it. What she knows of flirting and comfort she learnt from Adrien, and it's really rather sweet in its own way.

“Yeah, but those lines about your abs, bro! Hilarious.” With an exaggerated wink, Nino nudges them away from the little minefield they'd walked into. “Someone has a celebrity crush, I think.”

In her peripheries, she sees Adrien smile, and it's not quite like any she's seen on him before, even though she knows it somehow. Where has she seen that? So familiar, like a song that she remembers being beautiful and ugly in how it could make her cry, slipping out of her mental fingers even as it taunts and torments her because she can't get it out of her head, a few simple notes that cycle and cycle until she wants to scream in frustration because it's horrible and she can't grab it, and – and she wants to hear the whole thing, no matter how much it hurts.

Adrien laughs, but he doesn't really. “You shouldn't read too much into it, Nino. Just because someone thinks you're hot, doesn't mean they have a crush, or anything more than that.”

The live-read continues, and the song threatens to drown them out.

They get to the comments, agreeing, disagreeing, debating, and mocking the ugly ones as she stares at the dot of graphite under her pencil-tip.

Good friends see things. They listen to the subtle sounds and all those small, twitching signals.

Marinette strains her pencil, snaps graphite while sketching, and Alya looks over and starts humble bragging about her latest article while Luka asks random, general questions to support her and Adrien lavishes praise on Ladybug while wearing his model smile.

For them, the story is forgotten in favour of a new topic.

Not for her.

It's in the back in her mind, and she paces her apartment bedroom, not knowing why she's being silly; not understanding the strange bloated feeling in her stomach when she thinks about her stupid story and the response that it may have gotten. What were people saying? Did somebody actually realize that it was garbage and point it out? Did everyone realize that?  
  
What were people saying about _Chat_?

Passing by her computer desk time and time again, finding excuses to walk past and other excuses not to sit down, she keeps staring, eyes drawn back to the screen.

Surely there were only a handful of new readers or Kudos, right?

After failing to distract herself with some trashy reality television, she breaks and checks

Over two thousand kudos.

_How?!_

The story is on the Ladyblog's fiction recommendation section. It has been there for a week, and the fact that it has been taken down when Marinette checks again later in the evening doesn't change anything.

There are forum topics devoted to it.

The most heavily-trafficked is titled “Petition for a MarieBat Shipping Section” started by someone who hates the LadyNoir dynamic and wants her own space.

Comment after comment. Post after post. Person after person.

They build on each other. Feed each other. She scrolls and scrolls and sees moderators deleting posts as acrimony and bile burst up against Chat Noir for being useless and selfish and demanding – even though he never once touched her without checking her eyes or her posture to see if it was okay, and he was the opposite of selfish, always giving and supporting and – and _dying_ for her even if he could be a petulant and needy little shit sometimes.

Everyone was a little shit sometimes.

A small contingent of fans who support something called “Ladrien” in their tags band together and disagree, and they are quickly silenced.

There are bannings, and blocks, and muting, and deleted post after deleted post and the whole thing devolves into a mess before her eyes.

She turns off her computer and goes to bed early.

When she wakes up, she checks again, and gets drawn in.

Three other “MarieBat” stories are under the tag, posted over the last week, most of which also include “Ladybird” and “Damarie” tags.

They have hundreds of Kudos.

She reads them, even though she doesn't know why. One is well-written and interesting, with Robin visiting Paris to team up with Ladybug and Chat Noir and having weird feelings that he doesn't understand for the girl in red. One is more of an outline than a story. The last is mostly dialogue with an established relationship between Ladybug and Robin.  
  
It's... cruel. The conversation is all spite, covered with a – a veneer of love as if to excuse the gall spewed at the rest of Paris' heroes for “failing her” years ago during the Miracle Queen debacle.

Days pass.

She tries to stop. Tries to bury herself in work, even tries to go back to writing, but the motivation is gone and she can't stop thinking about those stories.

Day after day, she scrolls through the general section of Ladybug fan fiction, and then the “MarieBat” sub-forums. On _An Archive of Our Own_ , at first, there are only a few works interspersed with the usual long-form epics about Hawkmoth's identity being revealed or short fluff pieces involving Chat Noir and Ladybug, friends and partners, on rooftop dates where they share cocoa or play tag or just talk long into the night.

She reads all of the MarieBat works because they're her children in a way, something that she gave life to because all the complex interconnected lines of motivation and inspiration lead back to her one story.

They _start out_ short, but longer ones begin to emerge. Novels are begun one after another, and still she can't stop reading, tracking down every one. At first, it's to leave suggestions on how to improve Ladybug's characterization and make her more true to life, but she's so often shot-down that she stops writing even those using her main account.

She creates sock puppets to leave comments so that other users won't be able to associate them with her mainline stories. Fear crackles through her brain. It makes her feel like a thirteen year-old Marinette, crushed by Chloe, so close to...

The Marinette before Alya, before Ladybug, before confidence and support and love because what would these strangers think of her, how much of a horrible hypocrite she was if they knew she started this?

Even though she isn't writing, she turns off anonymous comments on her main account.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adrien's a pretty caring and considerate young man, who ... may know a good deal more than he lets on, just as Marinette knows a great deal more than she, perhaps, allows herself to realize. 
> 
> It's amazing the degree to which tribalism can erupt within something as innocuous as a fandom surrounding, well, a comicbook superhero like Damian Wayne. The emotional harm that can be inflicted, and absorbed, if we cannot step away - or are prevented from stepping away, as Marinette is by her own brain - from the darker parts of any community can be severe.
> 
> As I've mentioned in my response to at least one comment, this story proceeded from a rather unpleasant series of encounters with situations in which people - both "fandom friends" and perfect strangers - have been harassed and ridiculed, receiving death-threats and all manner of accusations, simply over the way in which they perceive, respond to, or write about characters from a children's cartoon show. 
> 
> Those kinds of interactions can have truly grotesque effects on people who, to use the term from the first chapter, "struggle." 
> 
> For Marinette, in light of her existing trauma and that recollection of Chat Blanc that underlies a great deal of this chapter, it's only going to get worse before it gets better.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's condition grows worse as she uncovers a new side to the MarieBat fandom, and then meets up with Chat for a conversation that is really more about the things they don't have to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for **trigger warnings** that spoil small elements of the chapter. Be aware, this chapter is where we explore the dark tags.

It gets worse, and her friends see it.

Alya asks if she's alright when she slouches into a cafe for a girlfriends “date,” not having slept because she was trying to dissect a story about Ladybug abandoning Paris that made her feel guilty for her selfishness, even though that wasn't her. She'd toiled on feedback for what felt like hours, trying to make sure that every word was precise and polite so that maybe, _maybe_ she could change someone's mind, and so she wouldn't look stupid for what she had to say.

When she checks during lunch, she finds that her comment was deleted.

In turn, Alya finds her crying in the bathroom.

That isn't the worst, though.

On the weekend, she has time to read – _really_ read.

Chat dies.

She has filters for “Main Character Death.” She can't stand it. Can't live it or think it.

But the story is untagged.

It's to save her in the final battle with Hawkmoth, and Marie moves to Gotham to escape the ghost that she sees out of the corner of her eyes, that taints every memory, and twists familiar places made alien because he's not there.

But he keeps on dying story after story. She can't save him.

She wants to stop but can't because she has turned off the filters on her account, chooses to search for only Main Character Death stories and there are dozens so she reads him dying, reads only stories about him dying, jumping from work to work and skimming until the death because she can't stop, can't save him, and he's dead on a roof and she forgets him, or his neck is torn, snapped, hangs, and the precious innocent boy lies there with all the light gone out of his dead eyes that are staring at her because it's her fault and she can never escape the spiral and those eyes when he slumps, pouring blood that his slick red hands can't hold back, as she cries in front of her computer and stops reading but she's watching him die over and over again flesh melting-blackening-charring and it's Gamer when he falls but his head hits pavement and bursts or Damian plunges his head underwater and he takes so long to die clawing and thrashing and the air bubbles slowing and stopping until his limp hands slide and fall and she laughs while he dies and she crying worse than ever before but can't stop, can't get out and it's her fault and-

The computer monitor trembles and topples face-down with a crash, a little ball of red light pulsating angrily on its surface, as Marinette reels back in her chair, hyperventilating and shaking. She's throwing up, vomiting half into her lap, the chair spinning out behind her as she drops to her knees and sick erupts from her mouth and pours out onto the floor between the trembling arms that brace her, just barely hold her up.

Hugging herself, she cries covered in vomit, shivering, trying to hold herself and hating herself because Chat dies over and over and it's her fault. Every time she closes her eyes, he's dead in the dark. God, how could she do this? He was so good and she killed him and she vomits again but doesn't because there's nothing but frothy clear-yellow ooze that she chokes up and then there is nothing just her throat convulsing with retching nothing and sobs.

She crawls to bed and doesn't sleep.

By the morning, she has to see him, touch him, press her hand to the edge of that mask and see his face heat up and that living, wide and playful grin bloom across his face as he purrs and puns as his nostrils flare because he's _breathing_ , and she can feel the pulse-beat in his throat while he hugs her tight.

An impromptu mid-morning patrol is easily arranged using the “Bug Signal,” a little droning ladybug that can be activated by remote, to match her small black cat buzzer.

Does he keep it in his room?

After reading those stories, peering into the lives of so many “Maries,” she wonders what his life is like.

Is he the youngest child? The clown of the family who gets away with everything and had older brothers who teased him, mussed his hair, and taught him how to wrestle when he was a kid? What did his room really look like? What colour were the walls of his childhood room? What cartoons did he watch? When did he start to shave? What were his dreams for when he grew up? Was he living them, or had he let them di-

She could almost see him, his now-adult room, still cramped, stuffed with anime posters and shelf upon shelf of collectible figurines and merch. Or maybe he had moved out already and was at college, living in a dorm with a roommate who hated his taste in music – Classical! Of all things! - and they ignored each other.

If he...

How many people would miss him?

Could he be missed enough?

That is the real question she never wants answered.

She calls him; they meet.

On a rooftop, bile flooding her esophagus and lungs because all she can see is his corpse, laid out with a katana through his throat that pins him to the roof as she swoons in Damian Wayne's arms, she asks Chat Noir how he feels about these weird new stories.

The question is off-hand, weaved into a conversation that she hopes feels like one of their typical easy chats as he stuffs Dupain-Cheng cookies into his mouth, belt-tail wagging like a dog's, and kicks his legs on the side of the roof. He smiles as he looks down at the bustle of people, delighting in just... watching them duck into stores or sit around eating brunch with friends.

Chat Noir bubbles like a diet soft-drink that's been shaken up, bursting with foam and carbon dioxide, but so quickly falling flat, even if it's sickly sweet.

Artificially sweet.

“Mariebat? I don't know. It's a little weird to ship a real person with a comicbook character, but he's a great one! I really like that first story. The author really had a great sense of humour and a good handle on... Marie's character.” His eyebrows wiggle, golden and playful, but she sees blood in the corner of his mouth as he smiles, bubbling carbon dioxide foam spilling, frothing, dispersing. Is she just imagining that?

“ _Requiem for Damian_ was one of the best Batman runs in... well, decades, I think.”

“What about the characterization?” she asks, nearly crushing the cookie in her palm.

“That? People have a lot of freedom to take characters and fit them into their stories, so I don't really pay much attention to that.” He shrugs, his back against the brickwork of a chimney as he stares up into the blue sky, maybe thinking about the clouds and trying to find shapes like – like puppies or tall ships rigged for thrilling odysseys out to sea because – because he has the power to transubstantiate everything that he sees into something innocent and adventurous.

It's then, staring at the pulse point that throbs in time with his gloriously strong heartbeat, eyes just unfocused enough for her to see the easy rise and fall of his chest and the flaring of his nose, that she finally feels that she can get enough air. It's _only_ then that she _really_ realizes it.

Adrien is a sun; she's been caught in his gravity well, warmed by his light, and, occasionally, scalded by it.

Chat is air.

You could live through the night, knowing that the sun would rise again, and you could even resign yourself to living in the darkness.

But without air, you'd suffocate in minutes.

“But-” she has to be honest. Just ask the real question. Stop dancing around it. “What about you? They, uh, they don't seem to like you very much.”

“It's fan fiction.” He scratches a cat ear as if it has an itch. Does it? What doesn't she know about him? “People can like whoever they want.”

“But you're nothing like – like _that_! They make you out to be... something you're not.”

He turns and the way his eyes glow and glimmer with a million reflected Parisian lights makes it seem like he's crying but the tears are all gummed up, caught in his green sclera. His mouth opens up, perfect, like it is practised. The expression is so painfully familiar that it feels like her throat is closing up and a sob dies inside of her lungs as she rubs at her eyes.

“That's because they don't really know me. See, people invent this image of a famous person in their heads, and then fit all the little tiny pieces of him, the few things that they actually see him do, into that box – the one they've labelled “him.” It's like... you make him what you want, or what you need in your life so that you can throw every desire or – or everything ugly onto him. That's what it means to be famous. They just invent the person they think you are, or the person that they need you to be so that you can give them what they want from you.”

It is a complete thought. A practiced thought. Not a complaint or a lament. He speaks without reserve or bitterness.

That makes it worse because he isn't hurting like her.

If she was selfish or didn't know her kitty as well as she does, she might resent him for not feeling anything, for not being able to really empathize with her and support her by screaming alongside her that it's all so damn unfair and cruel.

He isn't hurting like her.

She doesn't feel that way for one obvious reason that she's only now truly realized - something that responsibility always stopped her from seeing.

Chat has learnt how to slowly kill parts of himself that can feel pain.

He's looking at her, waiting for her or for himself, for someone to say what she thinks they both know because all the disjointed puzzle pieces make a whole picture, even though they butt up against each other, cardboard edges folding over, and she can't force them to fit together.

Something contorted and winding splits his face - Adrien's smile and Chat's smile from Gamer when he erased himself on a whim, all fear and perfect confidence in her – like she could take it away.

“Ma-my Lady,” he offers, taking her hand that trembles with the aftershocks of the shudders in her core as she sees, really _sees_ the kaleidoscopic blur of green, blond, black, and blanc. “Do you ever think, sometimes, that we're trying really hard to pretend that we're not screwed up?”

She squeezes his hand so tightly she thinks that she might break it.

Not that either one of them would notice.

“And that just makes things worse?”

She doesn't need to wonder what his life is like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: fictional main character death, obsession, disassociation?, light/moderate gore, drowning, burning. Marinette reads "Main Character Death" stories and gets lost in them and her own trauma halfway through.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More puzzle pieces slot into place, but that only means that Marinette can appreciate the true beauty and horror of the completed picture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end-notes for warnings.

The truly surprising thing, the thing that hurts most, is just how _easy_ it becomes to slot all those jagged-edged pieces of the puzzle together once she knows the image that they were always intended to create.

As a process, it is no less painful, of course, each sliver of metaphorical cardboard slips like blood-slick glass in her fingers, slicing them open, with every connection she makes.

She had never realized just how painful something easy could be.

The picture, in its full glory, is worth it.

They talk over the course of days, joining each other for a morning jog because it leaves them too breathless; meeting in a café where they're surrounded by people; exchanging emails where everything is polite and fake and _civilian_ , and that hurts too. How could it not when distance and the omnipresent fear of discovery – someone looking over your shoulder; a leaked message; a hacked computer – could destroy them?

They don't speak.

It's why she burned her diary years ago.

She couldn't even be intimate with herself; how can she be with him? If he saw, and knew, he'd hate her, and worse yet is the fear that if she let him in and truly explored what was behind the mask and the smile, the Adrien Agreste body ... that she might hate him too. Does that make sense? She doesn't know.

Maybe it doesn't matter. Doesn't need to make logical sense.

It goes on for weeks as they dance, a little Marinette and toy cat, dressed as a sad clown, jerked about on puppet strings – of fate, of his father, of Fu.

Of Chat Blanc, who's still pure ice water in her veins, peppered with tiny shards that slice open arteries.

There's just so much internal bleeding that she's blanching.

It's such a slow bleed.

That's why they still don't talk.

Eventually, one of the breaks. It's not clear who.

No. They were already broken; they'd just become so used to lying that they'd convinced themselves otherwise.

There's an akuma.

When she leaps from her apartment window, she finds Chat asleep on her roof.

Another puzzle piece slides into place, completing the one section that she still didn't even know was there.

Chat's been sleeping, and more often than not, not sleeping, right there. In the darkness and the daylight, he's been there ever since he found out. Maybe on that first night when she whited out. Maybe he's always been there.

She'd not allowed herself to wonder how she'd escaped attracting Hawkmoth's akuma.

Now, it's obvious: she hadn't.

His cheek is soft under her palm, as it always is, and those massive eyes, innocent and hazy with sleep as he rouses, blink open. It's like they're kids again.

“Come on, Kitty.” Her hip cocks, yo-yo spinning in her hand. “We've got a city to save.”

He follows her and it's a game of tag and chase over the Parisian rooftops, all laughing flirts as they cavort and twist through the air. Chat has raw power and speed, but she has agility and wits. As ever, they're evenly matched, and perfectly matched, as they dance their way towards the sound of sirens.

Chat's corpse is impaled through the throat.

There was a moment, just a moment, when he looked at her and she thought that he tried to smile – to tell her that was alright and all that came was blood.

Then he died.

She doesn't remember how she won; doesn't see anything other than him dead because he body-checked her out of the flight-path of a javelin.

Does she even feel anything or has she already drowned in a bathtub filled with ice-water, finally bled-out internally?

Is she already dead?

Maybe that would be better.

It would be easier.

But there's still a chance to save him; so long as there's even a sliver of hope, she can't let go.

She doesn't, so she plunges her hands into a bucketful of broken glass, chews the shards, swallows, and fights.

When they're sitting together and she sees him breathing, feels it with his chest rising and falling against her breasts, chest to chest, his arms loose around her waist – that's the only time that _she_ can breathe now.

His eyes are full of wonder even now – that she saved him, that she's here, naked in his arms because in her jeans and tanktop she's a civilian. Ladybug is nude, exposed.

Splayed open.

Her nose is to his throat, hands massaging his cheeks and jaw to feel the smooth, whole flesh. He shivers, trembles.

Sweat dried. Leather musk, and a mixtures of spices, but she can't tease out any of the smells; she knows they're there, but it's just one scent, just like there's only one clear picture.

Him.

She breathes, and it's the only time she feels alive.

When she tells him that without having to say it, he looks at her in a way that she's never seen from Adrien or from Chat. The way that the flesh pinches up under his cheekbones, model-smooth face tinted with myriad hues from the shifting radiance of Parisian store signs, traffic lights, and cars, is almost the same as when he smiles – when Adrien fake-smiles. Shadows swell like bruises under his eyes, and they're cool, like emeralds that have been split by a jeweler, rather than soft forests, or candy-apples, or all the other comparisons made by a young, kitty-love-sick Marinette.

They're none of those things, though.

They're just eyes: human and old.

When did they get so old? How can they look that old?

The arms tighten in response to the way she clutches at his shoulders. If anyone else were holding her, she'd start hyperventilating.

“So, the summer line is looking pretty good.” His breath ruffles her hair.

“Yeah. It's a bit avant-garde for _Gabriel_ , but the designs that you shared seemed really innovative.” General, completely lacking in insight. Has she lost touch with everything? Can she even form thoughts?

“I think that my father is taking a step back from the company; he's been ... tired these days, and no one has ever really been able to replace Nathalie since she left.”

“She was one-of-a-kind from what I'd heard.”

“Everyone is, in their own way, Milady.” His arms tighten, ratcheting up, crushing and she doesn't mind. “Everyone is special.”

Of course. He's always the one who tries to talk – to bridge the gap – even when he blundered through it because no one had ever taught him how.

What was her excuse?

“Milady?” he purrs into her hair, but it's tired. Affected. “Do- do you think that you can stop?”

What has she missed?

Of course he wants her to stop. To stop _everything_ because she's been a burden. That's what he's really saying, and as his arms tighten in response to her plaintive whine it's all that she can hear in the once-comforting murmur of his voice and the words that say that he cares but means that he hates her just like she deserves for letting him die again and again as the whirl of _Chat died_ sparks, flames and spirals and now, even in his arms, the heartbeat isn't enough to really convince her that he's real and alive.

That he cares.

“Stop what?” she mumbles, too ashamed to look at his face, to weak to break away and get away from him like he deserves.  
  
“Reading?”

“I – what?” The musk in her nose is turning bitter. She has to pull away, needs to do it now, so she does.  
  
His face is a pinched-up, deeply bruised mess, and she did that. She's responsible. Responsible for the city, for herself. For everything. For _him_. But that's the same thing, isn't it?

“I hear you sometimes,” he explains.

She pulls further back, teeth grinding. “Hear me in my apartment?”

“Yeah. Sometimes, you read under your breath, and I- well-” His leather ears twitch. “I have good hearing.”

“I ... like seeing what people are writing. I like writing my own stories too.”

“You haven't written anything in weeks.”

He must be one of her subscribers, one of the dozens she gained since starting this, or just uncovering this gaping abyssal cavern of horror that's spite and recrimination all reverberating, the echo of a child's death-screams – her own, that all those voices are just re-echoing, surpassing.

It's like an accusation, but _like_ is not _is_.

Her mind makes up “likes” from what “is” and there's an ineffable horror to that weakness, of being subverted and twisted up by your own brain.

“I just haven't been inspired, so... so I've been doing more reading than writing.”

He doesn't know what to say, just like she doesn't know what to write. Maybe they don't know _how_ to speak or write anymore; maybe everything but surviving is gone.

Exhaustion is crushing him; she's crushing him because year after year he'd helped bear her burdens and while she'd had Alya and her parents, whatever walls of silence were erected to cut them off from her as fears mounted, he'd had no one but her.

He's letting her breathe, seated on his lap, when each moment is a punch to his gut, or a vise that's squeezing the air out of him.

She is.

“You know?” she whispers, letting herself be weak by pressing her nose into his throat again. “I wish that I could have just kept ignoring this. That we could just go back to getting drunk and- and licking each other's abs.”

At that, he laughs, and there's something genuine and so, so vital in the shivers and rolls that race through them together.

“Yeah, my Lady.” A kiss to the crown of her head stops her breath, but this time, it's so good; one to her temple, feather light and reverent as if he's entering in to worship; one to her cheek, making her feel like a blushing teenager with her crush, like a child that Fu never let her be, that he killed; one, so slowly, asking, to her lips as her eyes sting and she tastes salt.

He pulls back a millimeter, close enough for his lips, chapped and dry from the wind, to feather over hers as he speaks, breath smelling of mint. His mouth tastes like lightning – the way ozone smells – and copper, and always salt.

“So do I.”

When she looks into his eyes, there's a moment when everything seems easy, smooth like the faux-leather under her fingertips, but then they shut.

Closed, under his lids, his eyes are blue and glassy-dead.

Through the sweetness of his kiss, and in the darkness when her tearing eyes squeeze shut, she still sees white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the extensive hiatus on this work. Time and motivation for writing have been limited in recent weeks. 
> 
> For those of you who remember this work, and are continuing to read, I very much appreciate it, and hope that you've enjoyed. 
> 
> Warning: Temporary Main Character Death


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